The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens [Hardcover]

Larry Lehmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2000

Now available in softcover format! The story of the last tour of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Richie Valens—and the fatal air crash that took their lives. Drawing on new documentary information, the author recreates the often grueling conditions of an early rock and roll tour, and provides new facts about "the day the music died." With 50 photos.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The last word on a pivotal event in pop music history." --Publishers Weekly --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Larry Lehmer is the assignment editor at the Des Moines Register. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books (December 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825671736
• ISBN-13: 978-0825671739
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,698,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Detailed Story of the Winter Dance Party, September 30, 2000

By 

C. W. Emblom "Bill Emblom" (Ishpeming, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Day the Music Died (Paperback)

Author Larry Lehmer has provided readers with a very detailed story of the events that led up to the deaths of early rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J. P. Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson. Individual chapters are provided on each individual and a thorough description of the various cities the rock stars visited during the Winter Dance Party in the Upper Midwest beginning in January of 1959. Due to inadequate bus transportation with little or no heat, the three singers decided to charter an airplane from Clear Lake, Iowa, to Fargo, North Dakota, for their next performance in Moorhead, Minnesota, to arrive early and get some needed rest. The crash of the airplane was due to poor flying conditions and the inadequate skills of the pilot in flying by instruments. The author explores other theories such as a fight on the plane or, incredibly, Buddy Holly shooting the pilot. Author Lehmer also provides a great deal of information on the airplane that was used and what has become of the arenas the singers used for their performances in each of the visited cities. Numerous photos of the singers during this Winter Dance Tour and of the crash site are also provided. Some readers may feel they are being told more than they want to know about this subject, but the author has done an incredible job in covering this story of this incident and what rock and roll was like during the late 1950's.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I've seen on the subject, September 10, 2001

By 

Ryan Sheeler - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens (Hardcover)

Lehmer's book is downright exhaustive in the coverage of the fateful Feb. 3 1959 plane crash that killed Holly, Valens, and Richardson.

I appreciated the detail and content of this book a lot. Being from Iowa, I have been interested in the Winter Dance party, and accounts of the crash for a very long time. (In fact, I just visited the Surf Ballroom and Mason City Airport while returning from a recent weekend vacation.)

Lehmer's book is very well-balanced, with chapters devoted to each of the three headliners. And it also has detailed plane crash info as well as analysis of the official CAB report.

In my opinion, easily the best book on "The Day The Music Died".

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well researched, but missing part of the forest for the trees?, February 12, 2010

By 

M. Alden "mainemike" (Maine, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Day The Music Died: The Last Tour Of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens (Omnibus Press) (Paperback)

After being out of print for many years, it's nice to see this book available again. Meticulously researched, with a lot of factual asides that make it genuinely interesting to read even for people who are already "in the know". Lots of interesting details, anecdotes, and coincidences - a few of which are downright eerie.

But as I read this book, I kept asking basic questions about the New York tour "organizers". The people who actually put the Winter Dance Party together only make vague, shadowy appearances in this book. Only one name is mentioned, to my recollection. In a book this detailed, I thought it was odd that there were no direct interviews with anybody who either worked on the tour or knew of people who did.

We know about the converted school buses with poor heating. What is never mentioned is why such crappy buses were leased for a tour of nationally known musical acts in the first place. Nor do we gain any insight into why obvious problems were never addressed on the tour when they arose. And what was with that crazy zig-zagging approach to visiting the cities and towns of the upper midwest? I know we're supposed to assume that the tour operators were working on the cheap, but is that the whole story? Because it seems to me that going 400 miles out of your way to stop at one city only to do a U-turn and then drive 300 miles in the opposite direction the very next day would rack up many unnecessary expenditures. So if money wasn't the only issue, what was? Mr. Lehmer never really broaches the subject; he seems to dance around it. We do learn about what brand of aspirin the Big Bopper carried around in his briefcase, however.

This is no small point; it seems to me that the tour operation itself is at the epicenter of this entire story. One could reasonably make the argument that if the tour were well organized and equipped from the get-go, the tragedy of February 3rd might well have been avoided. I wonder if any of the tour operators felt any sense of remorse over this. We'll never know.

Those questions notwithstanding, I enjoyed Mr. Lehmer's book. It's clear that he put a lot of hard work into this, and "The Day The Music Died" is a very interesting account of the Winter Dance Party tour and its aftermath. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest.

PS - As this book was first published in 1994, the "Where Are They Now?" chapter is seriously outdated. I don't fault the author for this of course, but an updated edition of this book might be worthwhile at some point.